Last weekend I spent hours preparing fresh homemade baby food using the Beaba Babycook for Isadora. It wasn’t labor intensive, but there were a lot of steps that kept me busy for two days:

Wash fruits and vegetables

Steam (only one apple or pear fits in Beaba at a time. I had four of each) or roast in the oven (sweet potatoes)

Puree

Cool in refrigerator

spoon into ice cube trays

remove from trays and put in labeled freezer bags

Each cube is 1 tablespoon. Initially, Izzy was only eating one or two tablespoons at a time. Last night, she ate six cubes! That’s six tablespoons (three ounces) of zucchini. We only started her on zucchini on Wednesday–she’s eaten four medium-sized zucchini since then. I only have three cubes left. Not even enough for a full serving with the way she’s been eating lately.

I also realized it was kind of a hassle to deal with frozen foods on the go. When we went to Chuck and Monique’s house for Thanksgiving, I brought some warmed up zucchini in a bowl and a few frozen cubes of sweet potato in case she was still hungry. It was messy and I was worried the food was going to leak in the diaper bag. Basically, just too much trouble.

So my plan is to continue to prepare and freeze homemade food, and use it for the majority of her meals. I am also going to break down and buy a few jars to keep on hand for times when we’re on the go. Whole Foods has a nice selection of organic baby food available. It’s going to be a lot easier to toss a jar or two of baby food in the diaper bag and head out the door when we’re on the go.

This photo was taken at City Hall while we were waiting for Chris and Tina to complete their paperwork to get married.

I forgot to report on Izzy’s progress from her six month check up. This giant monster baby is in the 90th, 95th and 97th percentiles for head size, weight and length respectively. You can see the strain in my arms as I had been holding her for about 15 minutes already. She looks like she’s getting close to being half my height!

Isadora did, despite the look on her face. She was just tired and getting a little fussy.

She had a very short nap because we had to wake her up so we could go to City Hall to see our friends, Chris and Tina, get married. (Congratulations! We’re so happy for you!)

(Photo by Mitch)

Izzy was mad at first, but quickly recovered. We headed out to City Hall, and she continued to stay awake. We waited around for about an hour while photos were taken and other couples were married. Izzy remained awake and cheerful. We were amazed. After the ceremony, we went to Makeydah to eat and celebrate. On the way there, we stopped at Whole Foods to pick up a few things for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner dish. Izzy remained awake and cheerful. I thought for sure she’d melt down or fall asleep once we made it to the restaurant. Nope. Izzy remained awake and cheerful. She even got passed around the table and made many new friends. She charmed them left and right. Dinner was over, and some folks were going to continue the celebration. I felt I pushed my luck as far as I should and asked Mitch to take me home. On our way out the door, the Maitre d’ told me I had a beautiful baby. He thought his grandchildren were good looking, but my baby, she was beautiful. We got home and Izzy got tangled up in one of her chairs (don’t ask me how) and cried until we rescued her. She shook it off quickly and went back to being a very awake and cheerful baby. I fed her some more zucchini and got her ready for bed. She fell asleep quickly and is still sleeping peacefully. I’m starting to get the idea I have something kind of special with my little Izzy.

Last weekend we introduced Izzy to rice cereal last weekend. It’s not really solid. I mix the cereal with breast milk with a 1:4 ratio. It’s still a liquid, just slightly thicker than what she’s used to.

The doctor told us to introduce new items every four days or so, but I’m going to introduce new things every Saturday. I’m going to miss enough milestones as it is while I’m at work during the week. This is one I’m going to participate in every weekend.

Grandma Suzanne gave us a Beaba Babycook, a wonderful contraption that steams and purees food. I could have just as easily steamed on the stove top, and then used my Cuisinart, but then I would have had many more dishes/pots to clean up. Plus, I like that the Beaba has a smaller footprint on the counter top and it can also be used to warm up frozen cubes of baby food. It will also be really easy to prepare small batches of fresh food while I’m cooking our own dinner.

I spent the weekend preparing Isadora’s food. My kitchen was a baby food making factory. Here is my first batch of yams:

I also made apples and pears yesterday. Today, I’ll finish up with the zucchini, butternut squash and peas.

I spent $22 on all of the organic produce for Izzy’s food. When I’m done cooking and freezing, I’ll have enough food to last for the next two months, or maybe longer. If I bought prepared organic food, I would have spent nearly that much on a 12 pack of 4 ounce jars, which would have lasted only a couple of weeks.

I fed Izzy some rice cereal again this morning. She likes it okay, and will eat most of what I make for her. But she really seems to love the sweet potatoes. She ate just about every bite I offered her.

When I was a little girl, my parents often played poker with my aunt and uncle, cousins, and friends until the wee hours of the night. Okay, it was probably only until 11:00 p.m., but back then that seemed very, very late to me. I remember going to other peoples houses and getting put to bed in a back room at my regular bed time, and falling to sleep to the sounds of story telling, laughter, shuffling cards and clinking chips. After the game was over, my dad would scoop me up and carry my sleepy little body out to the car and we’d go home.

On Friday, we continued that tradition. Mitch and I went to our friends’, John and Alyssa Welch, house for a friendly game of poker. They have a little boy, Nathan, who is about five months older than Izzy. They looked at each other a bit, but didn’t really play together. A five month age difference at that point is huge! Nathan is walking and eating solids on his own. Izzy was happy to lay on her back on the play mat and swat at the dangling toys.

It came time for Isadora to go to sleep, so I got her settled in the back room. She wasn’t going to sleep on her own, so I laid down with her for a little while. I ended up falling asleep with her and missing most of the game. It was funny though, when I was in that in between sleep and awake state, I really thought I was six or seven years old again and I was at my aunt and uncle’s house while they and my parents were playing poker. I was thrilled at the thought of my tired, little body getting carried out to the car. When I reached full consciousness, I realized that it’s my turn now to carry a sleepy, little body to the car.

Izzy started crawling today. Backwards. I missed it though. I found her underneath the pack and play this morning. No more leaving her unattended, and time to pick up all of the cat toys small enough to be choking hazards.